


Tijuana, 4AM

by devovitsuasartes



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 17:22:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9082192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovitsuasartes/pseuds/devovitsuasartes
Summary: Mickey wasn’t cut out for being gay. If he’d known being gay was this fucking hard, he’d have stayed in the closet. Post-Season 7.





	1. Chapter 1

After spending so many years trying stubbornly not to be gay, Mickey had imagined that coming out would be like letting go of a rubber band: it would snap back into the shape it was always supposed to be in, and all the struggle would be over. For a while, living with Ian and Svetlana, it had been just like that - easy, and natural.

But here, out on his own in a new country and as alone as he had ever been, Mickey was discovering that being gay was actually really fucking hard. He had assumed that all you had to do to be gay was fuck guys, but it turned out that there were a bunch of rules that he’d never even heard of, and all of his expectations were wrong, and Mickey was all wrong. After a full week of trying to pick up someone to fuck in Tijuana’s gay bars, he was feeling pretty downtrodden.

The first problem was that these fags weren’t looking for someone like Mickey. He was short and angry-looking, and he didn’t have a six pack, and he didn’t know how to dance, and he didn’t know how to flirt. On the first night he’d done a bunch of shots for liquid courage and then walked up to a guy who looked alright.

‘Hey, you,’ he’d barked.

The guy had looked at Mickey worriedly, like he thought he was about to get beaten up.

‘Wanna bang?’ Mickey demanded, jerking his head towards the door.

‘Oh,’ the guy had said, surprised, glancing over at his friends by the bar. He had given Mickey an apologetic grin. ‘Sorry, honey. I’m holding out for…’

‘Yeah, yeah, forget it,’ Mickey had said, already walking away. He didn’t need to hear about whoever the guy was holding out for. He had figured he could find another queer looking to get laid with ease.

Except it wasn’t that easy. Some guys were there with their boyfriends, and others were there with groups of friends who had judging eyes, and everyone Mickey approached looked at him like he was an alien. He tried to watch other guys hitting on each other, and there seemed to be two ways of doing it: the non-verbal way, which involved dancing up to a guy and getting a good grind on; and a coy, flirty conversational approach that Mickey just couldn’t pull off. He couldn’t seem to ask anyone “Can I get you a drink?” without it making it sound like “You want me to punch you in the teeth?”

Eventually, at the end of Mickey’s third night out, a Mexican guy in his forties looked him up and down with interest and asked if Mickey wanted a drink.

‘You could buy me a drink or we could go out back and fuck,’ Mickey had shot back. ‘Fucking is cheaper.’

The guy had raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. They went out to the back alley and the guy had tried to bend Mickey over against the wall, but Mickey felt weird about bottoming with a stranger and the other guy refused, so in the end they had just jerked each other off

It wasn’t until the fifth night out on Tijuana’s gay bar circuit that Mickey was able to drag someone home with him. It was near the end of the night, and he was pretty drunk, but he’d been watching a group of American tourists all night: preppy-looking college guys, obviously on a spring break vacation, laughing and doing shots. There was one in particular that Mickey had been watching. Redhead. Tall, athletic, pale skin. His tank top was showing off a spattering of freckles over his shoulders. Mickey didn’t know what his type was, really, but out of the corner of his eye this guy looked like Ian in a way that made Mickey’s chest ache and his dick stir.

He downed a shot of whiskey and stalked over to the group, trying not to look like he was about to mug them.

‘Hey, Red,’ he called out, loud enough to be heard over the music. The redhead turned around slowly, looked Mickey up and down. ‘You wanna get out of here?’ Mickey asked (if he’d learned anything this week, it was that these fags liked euphemisms).

The redhead’s shitty college fuckhead friends tittered among themselves, but he was smiling a little, apparently charmed by Mickey’s forwardness. ‘You got somewhere to go?’ he asked.

‘Back alley not good enough for you?’ Mickey fired back.

One of Red’s friends covered a smirk with his hand, muttered something to the guy next to him, but Mickey’s quarry didn’t seem to be put off by the forwardness. ‘Well, I like to be romanced a little,’ he said.

‘I got a bed and four walls. That enough romance for you?’

Red glanced back at his friends, jabbed one of them in the ribs and snickered. Mickey just stood there, arms crossed, waiting.

‘Sure,’ the guy said at last. ‘That’s a start. I’ll see you fellas tomorrow morning,’ he called over his shoulder, stepping in line with Mickey as he started heading towards the exit.

A chorus of ‘Oooooh!’ followed them, and Mickey heard one guy yell, ‘Use a condom, for god’s sake!’ He considered shelving the sex thing and just beating the shit out of every one of them, but Mickey hated having to double back.

The bed and four walls were a hotel room not far from the bar. Mickey walked in silence, smoking automatically, and the guy followed along behind him. After a while he said, ‘I’m Jim.’

‘Don’t care,’ Mickey replied, his cigarette wagging between his lips as he spoke.

‘Aren’t you going to tell me your name?’

‘Why?’

‘So I know what to call out in bed later,’ Jim countered smoothly, a grin audible in his voice. Mickey wasn’t in the mood for games, though.

‘Call me whatever the fuck you want, man.’ Mickey flicked his cigarette into the street, gestured at the door to his hotel. ‘Here.’

‘Charming,’ Jim said. Mickey didn’t know if that was a jab at him, or at the hotel. Didn’t care.

He’d assumed that, despite the clumsy start, things would at least be easier once they got to the sex part. After all, this - at least - was something that he’d had plenty of practice at. But once they got inside, Jim kept trying to make out with him and slowly feel him up, while Mickey was impatient to just get his clothes off and get on with it.

‘So, where you from?’ Jim murmured, kissing Mickey’s neck while Mickey fumbled the redhead’s belt open.

‘Are you fucking serious right now?’ Mickey snapped, shoving Jim away. ‘Shut the fuck up and get undressed.’

At first Jim had been playing along with Mickey’s rudeness, apparently finding it funny or charming or some shit, but Mickey could tell he was starting to get annoyed. ‘Just a question,’ he muttered, dragging his tank top over his head.

Mickey followed suit, dragged off his shoes and jeans, leaving them both in just their boxers. Then Jim crowded in again. Apparently he wanted to do dry humping now, for fuck’s sake. But at least Mickey’s dick was getting some friction as he lay down on the bed, Jim on top of him, thrusting between Mickey’s spread legs and biting his ear so that all Mickey could see was a smear of ginger hair out of the corner of his eye. Between that and the dry-humping, yeah, this was getting good.

‘You like getting rimmed?’ Jim asked quietly, right in Mickey’s ear.

‘Sure, whatever.’ Mickey would rather just fuck, but he wasn’t about to turn down a rim job.

Jim moved down his body, dragged off his boxers. Grabbed Mickey’s hip and flipped him over. Palmed his ass cheeks and pulled them apart a little, then paused. ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘What?’ Mickey didn’t like hearing the word “oh” said like that, when he was sitting here with his asshole exposed.

‘You’re kind of hairy.’

That one took a moment to process. ‘Of course I’m fucking hairy,’ Mickey said. ‘I’m a dude. Dudes are fucking hairy. Aren’t you hairy?’

‘I get waxed. And I trim.’

‘Well…’ Mickey didn’t know how to respond to that. ‘I don’t. I’m not a fucking girl. You want a fucking shaved beaver, go fuck a girl.’

‘It’s just… it’s not very clean. I don’t want to eat off a dirty plate, if you know what I…’

‘I fucking showered!’

‘Yeah, but the hair…’

‘So don’t fucking eat me out. Jesus fucking Christ. You were the one who fucking brought it up.’

‘Sorry, I just assumed…’

‘Can you at least fuck me? Or do you need me to sprinkle some fucking glitter on it first?’ Mickey snarled.

‘Fine,’ Jim said shortly. Out of the corner of his eye, Mickey saw this definitely-one-night-only fuck lean off the bed and grab his jeans, pawing through the pockets, pulling out a condom. ‘You got lube?’

‘Under the bed.’

While Jim retrieved it, Mickey rolled onto his back, suddenly very self-conscious about his apparently disgustingly hairy ass crack. He tugged on his dick a few times, trying to get it fully hard.

‘You ever top?’ Jim asked, returning from under the bed.

‘Yeah.’

‘We could do it that way, if you want.’ The redhead ran a hand up one of Mickey’s short, thick thighs, eyed his dick critically. ‘You hard?’ he asked.

‘Getting there,’ Mickey replied defensively.

‘Hm.’

Mickey felt an angry flush spread down his chest. He knew his dick was a little smaller than average. His brothers and his father and Svetlana had all made that very, very clear. But it had never really been an issue when he was fucking guys in prison, since that was more about power and Mickey getting off. And with Ian… Ian’s nine inch dick would have made anyone else’s look small, and Ian had never had any complaints about Mickey’s dick.

Anyway. Fuck Ian. This wasn’t about Ian.

‘Just fuck me,’ Mickey commanded, rolling back over onto his stomach.

‘Alright.’ He heard the snap of the lube cap, then fingers covered in cold gel were rubbing between his ass cheeks. ‘I don’t suppose it’s worth asking if you gave yourself an enema?’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ Mickey snapped, rearing up. Jim slapped a hand between his shoulder blades, pushed him back down.

‘Forget it, forget it, it’s fine.’

Mickey settled down again on his stomach, but he was tense as all fuck now. If he’d known being gay was this fucking hard, he’d have stayed in the closet. Mickey wasn’t cut out for being gay. He was too short, too pale, too grubby. His dick was too small and his asshole was too hairy and his rectum wasn’t properly rinsed out. He winced as Jim shoved two fingers inside him without much ceremony, spreading the fingers a little. Fortunately Mickey had spent a significant portion of his teenage years shoving stuff up his ass in an effort to find new ways to get off, so he was well-practiced at this.

‘It’s fine, that’s good enough, just get in me,’ he said roughly, getting up on his knees a little and arching his back.

Jim kneeled up, pushed inside, and Mickey thought with vicious satisfaction that he wasn’t anything to write home about; not nearly as big as Ian. It was still good though, and as faggy as Jim was he at least knew how to fuck hard. Mickey closed his eyes, reached down to rub his cock and breathed deep, imagining that he was back home in his own bed with Ian over him, gripping his hips, gasping shakily with each inward stroke, letting out the occasional muffled groan. Yeah, this was good. This was worth dealing with all the bullshit at the club and all the redhead’s catty little digs about Mickey’s body. It was worth it all to get fucked like this…

‘Yeah, you like that?’ Jim grunted.

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Mickey moaned back, keeping his eyes squeezed tight closed, working his hand on his dick.

This was supposed to be about moving on from Ian. But Mickey couldn’t help himself from thinking about Ian, any more than he could stop himself from throwing the first punch in a fight. He thought about Ian’s pale skin, and the way Ian smiled with one side of his mouth, and the way Ian laughed, and the way he pouted when he was upset about something. He thought about how hopelessly affectionate Ian was, how he seemed to crave being close to Mickey. He thought about Ian’s hot fucking body, those tight abs and slender limbs with their pale curls of ginger hair, and about the confident slam of Ian’s cock inside him when they fucked. And he thought about Ian leaning forward, whispering Mickey’s name in his ear like a secret, _Mickey, Mick, Mick, oh, Mick_ …

‘C’ming,’ Mickey muttered, the word smeared into the bedsheets. He screwed his face up, stroked his cock fast, then stilled his hand, squeezing tight around his cockhead as he came into his cupped palm. It spilled over his fingers, spilled onto the bed. When it was over, he panted like he’d been shot, his head reeling, his limbs weak.

After a few seconds, Mickey began to feel oversensitized and the dick slamming his ass started to hurt where it was knocking against his prostate. He winced, tried to adjust, but there was no respite. They would have to take a break.

‘Hey,’ he said, lifting his head. ‘That fucking hurts. You gotta pull out.’

Jim groaned behind him, slowed a little but didn’t stop, threaded his fingers through Mickey’s hair.

Mickey was in that post-coital state where he wasn’t turned on at all any more and he just wanted to stop having sex. He could finish Jim off with a blow job or something. ‘Fucking stop. Pull out,’ he repeated, louder this time.

Jim gave a grunt that sounded irritated. He tightened his fingers in Mickey’s hair, used the grip to push Mickey’s face down into the bed sheets. He started fucking in harder again.

Mickey bucked, tried to push the other man off, but he was all weak from his orgasm and the position left him with no leverage. Jim started fucking him harder and faster again and it hurt, it hurt a _lot_. Mickey tried to yell at him to stop again but his face was flattened against the bed and he couldn’t really draw breath.

With a distant feeling of disgust at himself, Mickey started to panic. He tried again to throw Jim off, with no success. It was only when he tensed up so much that it must have started to hurt Jim as well that the redhead finally pulled out with a pained grunt, leaving Mickey gasping for air on the bed. He heard the snap of the condom, the spank of flesh-on-flesh behind him, getting faster, then a low groan. Hot fluid spattered onto the small of his back, onto his ass cheeks.

‘Mm. Fuck,’ Jim muttered, and Mickey felt rather than heard him give his cock one last good shake, flicking the last few drops of come onto Mickey’s back.

There was a silence. Then the bed springs creaked and Mickey felt the mattress behind him lift as Jim got off the bed.

‘Shower,’ he called over his shoulder in a slightly hoarse, loose, post-coital pitch that made Mickey’s skin crawl.

It took a few long seconds of listening to Jim move around the tiny ensuite bathroom, the spitting and then streaming of the shower, before Mickey felt ready to sit up. He swung his legs shakily over the side of the bed, wincing as he felt come slide down his back. He realized only by looking at them that his hands were shaking. His prostate was throbbing painfully and he kind of felt like he needed to take a shit, even though he knew he didn’t.

Mickey wasn’t really sure what had just happened. It was replaying in his head, over and over: telling Jim to pull out, Jim ignoring him, Jim shoving his head down. The events blurred together and got muddled until Mickey wasn’t sure if he’d actually said the words “stop” and “pull out.” If he had, he must not have said them loud enough, or clearly enough. Right?

Suddenly, Mickey had had enough of thinking. He pulled his boxers on, opened the drawer of his bedside table and fished out his Glock 23. Squaring his shoulders and lowering his head like a pitbull about to charge, he stalked into the bathroom, tore open the shower curtain, found Jim blinking in surprise under the stream of water.

‘Ready for round t-’ was as far as he got, before Mickey pistol-whipped him hard on the right temple. Jim crumpled, and blood poured down his face and spattered on the floor of the shower. The redhead threw up his hands feebly, but Mickey knocked them aside, grabbed him by the throat, pulled him to his feet.

‘You queer piece of shit,’ he tried to snarl, but it came out more like an angry sob, so he gritted his teeth and slammed the butt of his gun into Jim’s face again, felt his cheekbone break under the impact. He hit him again, and Jim was coughing out a tooth, crying now, begging Mickey to stop.

Mickey dragged him out of the shower by the throat, dragged him into the bedroom, straddled his chest and hit him across the face again with the gun. Then he pressed the tip of the barrel against Jim’s forehead, wrapped a finger around the trigger. ‘I’m gonna shoot you, you fuck,’ he gritted out. ‘I’m gonna put a fucking bullet between your eyes.'

Jim was frozen under him in terror, his eyes wide. ‘Why?’ he asked desperately. ‘Why?’

Mickey hesitated, wavering, uncertain. His grip on the trigger loosened. There were a few long seconds when the room was filled with nothing but the sounds of their harsh breathing as Mickey stared down at Jim and Jim cringed away from the gun.

Finally, Mickey leaned back, dropped the gun away from Jim’s head without letting go of it. He climbed off the redhead, gave him a shove to get him moving. ‘Get the fuck out,’ he said.

Once he was sure he wasn’t about to get shot, Jim gathered up his clothes, still crying, bleeding everywhere. ‘You’re a fucking psycho,’ he was saying. ‘You’re a psycho. I’m gonna call the fucking cops.’

‘Go ahead, bitch,’ Mickey heard himself say. He yanked open the door to the hotel room, shoved Jim outside, not caring if he had all his clothes yet. He slammed the door shut, threw the chain on, tossed the gun back in the drawer, then sank down onto the bed. Mickey knew that he would need to grab his shit and leave soon - even if college boy didn’t call the cops, the hotel probably would, or the other guests. For now, though, he needed a few minutes just to breathe.

Mickey put his head in his hands and wished that Ian was there to put his arm around him, to let Mickey lean into him. Suddenly, he missed Ian so fucking much that it felt like his heart was being torn from his chest. There was blood on his hands and Mickey wanted Ian to wipe it off, wanted to ask Ian what the fuck had just happened, wanted Ian to tell him he wasn’t a psycho, he wasn’t crazy.

But Ian wasn’t there. Once Mickey could breathe again, he gathered up his things and disappeared into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Mickey’s skin was still pink and damp with exertion, his stomach muscles aching, when Ian slid a cigarette between his lips, brought his arms up around Mickey and lit the cigarette for him with a beat-up old plastic lighter, cupping the flame with his hands. Mickey tilted the cigarette up in a salute, took a deep drag, closed his eyes as he indulged in the sensation of Ian’s fingers combing through his hair. Mickey breathed out through his nose, the smoke curling around his face as he did so.

‘That was fuckin’ great,’ he said, the glowing tip of the cigarette bobbing up and down as he spoke. Ian hadn’t been able to get hard, something to do with his meds being rebalanced, so he’d slid down between Mickey’s legs and given him a slow, intense, drawn-out blowjob until Mickey came deep into Ian’s throat, two of Ian’s fingers roughly pushing inside him and a thumb rubbing his perineum firmly. It was the kind of blow job that only a lover could give: someone who knew Mickey’s body almost as well as he did himself, and knew exactly how to play it.

Sitting on the bed behind him, Ian watched Mickey smoking with a kind of hungry indulgence. He couldn’t take his fingers out of Mickey’s hair. It was much softer now than it had ever been before. Mickey had said that he couldn’t wear as much pomade these days, because the Mexico heat made it melt and run down his forehead and into his eyes, so he’d let his hair run a little wilder. When Ian had finally tracked him down, Mickey Milkovich had actually had bangs, and he’d scowled fiercely when Ian pointed them out.

Mickey turned his head a little to glance back at Ian, held the cigarette between his teeth and grinned. ‘Fuck you looking at?’ he asked, mock-threateningly.

‘Looking at you, asshole,’ Ian shot back, mirroring Mickey’s smile. ‘I missed looking at you.’

Mickey snorted derisively. ‘Whose fault is that?’ he said bluntly.

Yeah. It hadn’t been an easy reunion. Leave a guy at the Mexican border and you’ll find him pretty pissed off when you finally cross the border to find him. For a while Ian had been sure that he’d really fucked this up for a good, that he’d have to swallow the loss and go back to the South Side alone. In the end, though, Mickey had taken him back, and now Ian was sitting in Mickey’s run-down apartment in Cancún, trying like hell to earn the second chance that Mickey had given him.

Mickey took a deep drag from the cigarette, then held it out. Ian reached out and took it, and as he did so he saw Mickey’s eyes tracking his arm and the deep, raw, recently-healed cuts on the tender skin inside his wrist.

Yeah.

Ian had been doing great. His meds were working as well as could be expected, he had a good job, and the family was more tight-knit than ever following Monica’s death. Trevor had told him, frankly, that they couldn’t be boyfriends any more but they could still be friends, and Ian was surprised to find that this promise wasn’t actually bullshit. He and Trevor stayed friends, hung out at clubs and bars together, became each other’s wingmen. There was still a playful frisson of sexual tension between them that added spice to their conversations, but without the stress that came with a relationship.

Job. Meds. Family. Friends. Ian had been stable. And then he’d been on the bathroom floor with his wrist open, bleeding like a stuck pig, texting Trevor because he didn’t want Fiona to have to deal with this shit again, not so soon after Monica dying.

Trevor had called an ambulance right away and arrived at the house just before the ambulance did. He’d wrapped a towel around Ian’s wrist, pressing down hard, had kept Ian talking until the paramedics arrived. Trevor had called Ian’s brothers and sisters, told them which hospital to go to. And then, in a gesture that Ian would never stop being grateful for, Trevor had quietly gone back to the house while everyone was at the hospital, and had cleaned up Ian’s blood before Fiona or anyone else could see it and have to deal with it.

Once Rita caught wind of the incident Ian was barred from coming into work, and he’d overheard Lip and Fiona talking in low, emotionally exhausted voices about persuading Ian to commit himself to the psych ward again. Well. That wasn’t going to happen. It just wasn’t.

Before he left, Ian told Trevor where he was going. He figured he owed him that much. Sitting on the trunk of Trevor’s car, smoking some high quality weed, they’d watched the water lapping at the rotten wood of the docks.

‘You going to tell me not to go?’ Ian had probed quietly.

‘If I thought you’d listen to me,’ Trevor had shot back, with a sad smile. ‘Hey, man, if this is what you think you need, I won’t try to stop you. Just promise me you’ll stay in touch.’

Mickey hadn’t taken it well, when he’d seen the cuts. For a while after Ian found him, it had been easy to keep them hidden. Mickey had been mad at him, refused to even kiss him at first, and when they finally fucked again it was an angry clash that left most of their clothes on. The next time had been slower, though, with more passion than rage. Ian had kissed Mickey long and deep, and Mickey had slid Ian’s outer shirt off his shoulders, and Ian didn’t remember the wounds until it was too late.

‘The fuck did you do?’ Mickey had screamed, shoving at Ian’s chest, grabbing him by the hair with both fists and shaking his head violently, snatching up Ian’s wrist and gripping it painfully tight. He’d held it in front of Ian’s face like a dog owner rubbing a guilty puppy’s nose in a mess on the carpet. ‘What the fuck is this? You tried to off yourself? Are you kidding me? Fuck you, Gallagher, fuck, what the fuck…’

The fight had sort of gone out of Mickey after that. Ian had drawn him close, kissed his hot, red cheeks and his distressed mouth. They hadn’t really talked about it since.

Ian took the cigarette from Mickey with two fingers, placed it between his lips, took a drag. Mickey watched him lazily, under hooded eyelids. Ian quirked his eyebrows suggestively.

‘So,’ he asked. ‘My mouth as good as you remember?’

‘Better,’ Mickey admitted. ‘You’ve been practicing, Gallagher.’

Ian shrugged. ‘Here and there. I’m sure you’ve kept busy, too.’ He nudged Mickey with his elbow.

‘Heh.’ Mickey looked down at his hands, which still promised to FUCK U-UP. ‘You know me,’ he said. There was a pause, one of those pauses that Ian knew too well. It was one of those tense pauses where Mickey wanted to say something, but the social skills involved were outside of his usual wheelhouse of banter and threats. ‘Had some great sex,’ Mickey said at last. ‘Had some really fucking bad sex.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Mickey had his head turned away a little, and Ian could hear how hard he was straining to keep his voice casual as he continued. ‘This one fucking guy up in Tijuana. Kept bitching about how I wasn’t waxed and I hadn’t washed my ass out enough or whatever. But then once we actually get to fucking, he won’t stop. Like, I busted and I told him to stop and pull out. But he fucking didn’t. Just shoved my head down into the mattress and carried right the fuck on. Hey, quit hogging the smoke.’ Mickey reached his left hand over his right shoulder, gesturing for Ian to pass him the cigarette.

Ian didn’t pass it to him. He stubbed it out in the ashtray on Mickey’s bedside table, not taking his eyes off the side of Mickey’s face. ‘Wait, are you serious?’ he asked, slowly.

Mickey shrugged with faux-nonchalance. Dropped the hand he’d been reaching back with onto his own shoulder, squeezed it. ‘Yeah. Asshole, right? As soon as he was done I pistol-whipped that bitch.’

Ian knew Mickey well enough to know why he was being told this story. It wasn’t because Mickey was trying to make him jealous. This was a bad memory for Mickey, a painful one, and he was carefully telling Ian the bare details to get someone else’s perspective on it. Bringing it up as a casual conversation gambit, because Mickey wasn’t the kind of guy to ask what he really wanted to ask. So Ian told him.

‘Mickey, if you told him to stop and he kept going, that’s not bad sex. That’s rape.’

Mickey was sitting really, really still. He had his face lowered, turned away. The silence stretched out for a few long moments. Finally Mickey said, ‘Come on, man. I mean. We were already doing it.’

‘It doesn’t fucking matter,’ Ian countered firmly, wanting Mickey to hear that there was no trace of doubt in his voice.

‘Well, he hadn’t gotten off yet, so…’

‘Mickey, it _doesn’t fucking matter_.’ Ian’s mind was racing and his chest felt tight. All he could think about was the fact that if he hadn’t left Mickey at the border, Mickey wouldn’t have gone out looking for other guys to sleep with, and Mickey would never have been raped. At least having Trevor as a best friend meant that Ian had picked up some advice about how to deal with this situation, and the number one tip was _don’t make it about you_. What mattered right now was how Mickey felt, not how Ian felt.

Tentatively, Ian reached out, placed his hand over the one that Mickey had on his own shoulder, squeezed it. ‘Hey,’ Ian said. ‘Mick, this is not a grey fucking area. You told him to stop, he didn’t stop. That’s like, dictionary definition rape.’

‘I did it to someone.’

The words hung in the air, in a shocked silence. Mickey’s face was still turned away. Ian let him stay like that; knew that Mickey hated for anyone to see his face with naked emotion upon it.

‘What?

‘I raped a guy, then. In juvie.’ Mickey’s voice was sharp, but exhausted. ‘I was fucking this guy, one of my cellmates. He told me it hurt, asked me to pull out. And I told him… I told him, “Shut up, bitch.”’ Mickey’s shoulders were hunched over. ‘I didn’t even think about it afterwards. That’s just how things are in juvie.’

Ian didn’t know what to say. Trevor had never told him how to deal with this situation.

‘You think that guy… You think he felt the same way I did?’ Mickey asked. ‘The same way Mandy felt when Dad used to…’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

‘I don’t know,’ Ian admitted quietly. ‘Probably. Probably he did.’

Mickey pulled his hand away, rubbed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Took deep, shaky breaths.

‘Fuck,’ Mickey said, in a long exhale. ‘Fuck.’

Ian had no idea what to say. He couldn’t tell Mickey that it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t know any better, without excusing the guy that raped Mickey as well. It was all so fucked up and messy.

Slowly, like he was approaching an injured wild dog, Ian reached out and tugged at Mickey’s biceps until Mickey was lying between his legs. Ian laid back against the headboard, his arms around Mickey, Mickey lying back against Ian’s chest and staring up at the ceiling. He wasn’t hiding his face any more, and Ian could see that his eyes were red and wet.

Ian lifted his hand and touched Mickey’s face, cupped Mickey’s jaw with his fingers, stroked Mickey’s cheek with his thumb. He loved Mickey so much that it made his chest hurt, loved him so hard that he could feel it acutely even through the numbing film of the anti-depressants. When Mickey turned his head and kissed the inside of Ian’s wrist, right above the first cut, Ian loved Mickey so much that he didn’t know what to do with himself.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ian said at last. ‘I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry that happened to you.’ _I won’t let it happen again_ , he added in his head.


End file.
